ABSTRACT
During its prolonged deliberations, the Council of Trent subjected nearly all aspects of the Catholic Church to critical scrutiny.1 Its wide-ranging decrees touched on matters from the behavior of priests and the conducting of services to rules for entering monasteries and selecting superiors. Along with these internal reforms, the aim of Trent was to strengthen and increase the membership of the Church in face of Catholic disillusionment and Protestant incursions. These two separate yet interrelated goals are reflected in the dual terms “Catholic Reform” and “CounterReformation”: the former referring to internal changes within the church, the latter to its external reactions against Protestantism.2 The “interior” and “exterior” faces of Early Modern Catholicism complement other inner/outer oppositions, like those of buildings and (female) bodies, which we have already noted.
